Tamil Congress Presses Canadian Government For Help
Posted May 19, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Tamil-Canadians and their supporters are keeping up a vigil outside the U.S. Consulate, days after the government declared victory in a civil war that’s raged in Sri Lanka for more than 25 years.
Earlier in the month, demonstrators in Toronto were calling for a ceasefire. Now, they’re asking for humanitarian aid. Tamils are also calling for media and independent monitors to enter the zone, even if fighting has theoretically ceased.
“As Sri Lankans celebrate the end of the war in their country, Tamils living in Sri Lanka and around the world have nothing to celebrate today,” President R. Sri Ranjan claimed at a media conference on Tuesday.
The president of the Canadian Tamil Congress said the worst was not yet over. The horrors of internment camps will continue, he said, unless Canada and other foreign governments intervene.
“The military conflict in Sri Lanka may be past, but the plight of the Tamil population is more tragic now than ever in the history,” Ranjan added.
“Peace in Sri Lanka cannot be attained without respecting the aspirations of the Tamil people, which is the recognition of their inherent and inalienable right to self-government.
“The Tamil question in Sri Lanka has lingered since independence in 1948, which successive governments rendering Tamils as second-class citizens in their own home.
“They have been deprived of their right to language, culture, social and economic development…Tamils are deprived of their basic human rights and civil liberties.”
At a candlelight vigil on Monday, many Tamils denied the military’s claim that it had defeated the Tamil Tigers and killed its leader.
Others say they’ll continue the demonstration until adequate medical and food aid gets to thousands of civilians who had been trapped in the war zone.
In Sri Lanka, state television has shown a body that it claims is Tamil Tiger leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran. The video also shows his identity card and dog tag.
But David Poopalapillai, National Spokesman for the Canadian Tamil Congress, says either way there’s still much work to be done.
“The military nature of the conflict is over, but until the Sri Lankan government addresses the root cause of the problem there won’t be any peace,” he argued.
Congress reps also insisted they’re not behind the ongoing protests which have sparked controversy in Toronto. But Ranjan says if Canada’s government doesn’t increase its efforts they will continue nonetheless.
“If the government keeps quiet for a longer time, the protests are going to become bigger and bigger,” he says. “Unfortunately there’s no other way to make the government listen.”
The Congress wants Stephen Harper’s Tories to increase pressure on Sri Lanka to let in mediators and media.
A meeting with the Prime Minister’s Office is scheduled for Congress leaders next week.
